Friday, March 24, 2006

Russia fed U.S. strategic info to Saddam Hussein

I've long believed that a key reason for the war was the fact that some nations (France, etc) misled Saddam Hussein into believing they could convince the United States not to enforce the UN sanctions. Now we have this report that says the Russian Ambassador to Iraq was providing Hussein and his generals with U.S. war plans in the early days of the war.

Document dated March 25, 2003

The second document (CMPC-2004-001117) is a typed account, signed by Deputy Foreign Minister Hammam Abdel Khaleq, that states that the Russian ambassador has told the Iraqis that the United States was planning to deploy its force into Iraq from Basra in the South and up the Euphrates, and would avoid entering major cities on the way to Baghdad, which is, in fact what happened. The documents also state "Americans are also planning on taking control of the oil fields in Kirkuk." The information was obtained by the Russians from "sources at U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar," according to the document.

Technically, this could be taken as an act of war by a representative of the Russian government. Obviously, we have no intention of going that route, but still this has to seriously affect relations between our countries.

Separately, every effort needs to be made to ascertain the source of the information. The source needs to be hanged as fitting a spy and traitor during war.